Unfair
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: Katniss has suffered from horrible nightmares for as long as she can remember. The night before she will enter the arena for the second and final time, someone comes to check on her, but it isn't who she expects. [Femmeslash. Obviously AU.]


**A/N:** Effniss one-shot because Catching Fire. Or maybe not a one-shot? Indiscriminate mish-mash of book and movie verses. Obviously AU. Smutty. Feedback would be much appreciated! Happy Thanksgiving!

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**Unfair**

Katniss had woken up screaming almost every night for as long as she could remember. After the first Games, her nightmares had worsened tenfold. Her vision was blurry but for the faces of fallen tributes—those she had killed and those she might as well have—intermingled with the furious and fearful faces of rebellious citizens of the Districts and a wedding dress that was so much more than a wedding dress.

Katniss squeezed her eyes closed until her breath steadied and she felt slightly less like she would vomit. Not that the wedding dress really mattered, she reminded herself. She wouldn't make it out of the arena this time.

She didn't know what exactly alerted her to the presence of another person in her room, but her eyes shot open and she grasped for a bow that was not there. Slowly, as her vision cleared and her brain caught up with the natural response of her body, she allowed her hands to fall to her sides.

"Effie?"

Not Peeta. He'd come to her room a few times at the sound of her screaming. She'd asked him to stay, because she knew he cared for her, and because having someone there with her helped. She'd gotten very good at ignoring her guilt for what she imagined was probably classifiable as using him.

But this was not Peeta. It was Effie.

Sort of.

Katniss was surprised to see her at all—after the uproar from the interviews, Effie had been among those ordered to go home without saying goodbye. Without the wig and make-up and oddly coloured eyelashes, though, she was almost unrecognizable. Effie's real hair was mousy blonde and very fine. She looked younger than Katniss would have estimated if she'd ever given the matter any thought—maybe in her early thirties at most. Her face was set in the same expression she'd had at the reaping: like she was being forced to do something she desperately didn't want to.

"Hello, Katniss," she began, and forced a smile. Her hand came up to offer a flourish and a wave. "It is dreadfully late, you know, and I would think you'd need all the rest you can get. I cannot imagine why you would waste that valuable time..." she cleared her throat and averted her eyes "...screaming."

Katniss clenched her hands into fists. A cold retort made it all the way to her lips before she abruptly swallowed it. She didn't know why. She didn't owe Effie any kindness. She didn't owe anyone anything. She wanted to be furious at everything, to fearlessly shout obscenities like Johanna Mason because nothing mattered anymore. The only reason she didn't was because she was clinging to the ridiculous glimmer of hope that Snow might spare her friends and family if she went to her death quietly.

But Effie wasn't President Snow. She wasn't Plutarch Heavensbee, or the Head Peacekeeper who had whipped Gale within an inch of his life. She was a product of the Capitol—a woman who had grown up in luxury, the likes of which Katniss could still barely even comprehend. She must have had Capitol propaganda practically whispered in her ear since the day she was born.

And she wasn't nearly as oblivious as she'd have everyone believe. And in her way, she cared for Katniss and Peeta. She didn't want them to die, anyway. Or she'd feel some passing vestige of sadness if they did. For Effie—someone Katniss had until very recently believed to exist completely beyond the realm of human emotions—that was actually saying a lot.

Katniss realized that Effie wasn't here to reprimand her for screaming. If she were, she'd have put on a wig and make-up and clothes before she did it. She had come in a hurry, probably not without a thought as to her appearance, but even more—she must have had the thought and overcome it. She was trying to reach out. She just didn't know how.

So Katniss swallowed her unkind words and searched for something else to say. She wasn't well-versed in reaching out, either. If the best Effie could do was to politely reprimand, the best Katniss could do was not to be overtly mean. What she came up with was no great feat of communication, but it was true and straightforward. "Nightmares," she said.

Effie's eyes were on her again, wide and searching. She pursed her lips, and the action drew Katniss's attention to their natural shape without that strange little heart that was in fashion now.

"Ah," was her response. She looked down again and began to wring her hands. "I'm sorry," she amended.

Katniss bit the inside of her mouth, then decided to say what she wanted to. It didn't matter. Tomorrow she would enter the arena for the second and final time, and she would never see Effie again. The last face she would see would be of someone who wanted to kill her. Effie, in some small way, didn't want Katniss to die.

"Thanks," said Katniss. Slowly, she unclenched her fists. "For checking on me."

Effie opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, opened it again, took a breath, then sighed. She nodded silently.

"Aren't you tired?" Katniss wondered. A part of her didn't want Effie to leave—at least, not just yet—but Effie seemed so uncomfortable, and Katniss had already decided there was no reason to be cruel to her. "Big, big, big day tomorrow," she amended before she could stop herself.

Effie's lower lip began to tremble. She bit it for a moment and it stopped, but her forehead retained a telltale wrinkle of concern. At last she looked Katniss in the eye. "I am so sorry," she said again.

Katniss was at a loss for how to respond. Instead she wordlessly patted the bed next to her. She didn't want to be alone, after all.

Effie approached with quick awkward steps and took the seat she was offered, facing slightly away from Katniss. Katniss vaguely noted that Effie seemed much smaller without her high heels and puffy sleeves.

"It isn't fair," she said quietly.

"Nothing is fair," Katniss agreed.

"But everyone loves you," Effie insisted. "On the Victory Tour, they... what was it they did?" She demonstrated—kissed three of her fingers and held them out to no one, then abruptly turned to look at Katniss. "It means something, doesn't it?"

"An old sign from District Twelve," Katniss told her. "Sometimes they do it at funerals. It means..." She paused—she knew the words in her mind, but struggled to voice them. "Thanks. Admiration. Goodbye...to someone you love."

She didn't know if the people in the other districts knew that. To them, it meant rebellion. Katniss didn't want to think too deeply about that, and she didn't want to bestow that knowledge on Effie, who was already so overwrought with worry.

Effie turned away again. "Goodbye," she echoed, but the second part of the word was barely even a whisper.

Katniss had spent hours coming to terms with her fate. She had refocused her attention on saving Peeta from sharing it. He was a good person. People liked him. Katniss liked him. He deserved to live out his life. Maybe without Katniss, he could even have a chance at some of the other things the Capitol had stolen from them. Maybe he could find someone to love who loved him back, and they wouldn't spend their lives acting for the cameras.

And Effie? If Peeta won, Effie might finally get her promotion. She could go on about her life as she wanted it. She'd quickly overcome whatever small sadness she felt when Katniss died. It was strange to realize, after all this time hating and making fun of Effie, that Katniss now actually wished her well. She wanted everyone she cared about to be safe and happy—to go on about their lives like they had before Katniss had drawn such dangerous attention to them.

Now that included Effie.

"If everyone loves us, maybe you'll get promoted to a better district next year," said Katniss.

Effie looked at her again. "Next year?" She turned away abruptly and covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a sob.

Katniss gave her an awkward pat on the back. Effie responded by turning around and throwing her arms about Katniss's shoulders. She wept silently, but her entire body shook with the force of her tears.

Katniss was left with nothing to do but to return the embrace. It was perfunctory—the only alternative she saw to waiting stiffly for the contact to end—but moments passed and Effie did not let go, and inexplicably, Katniss felt compelled to ball her hands into fists. She loosely grasped handfuls of the silky material of Effie's nightdress as she felt her brow begin to furrow. Then, when Effie still did not pull away, Katniss returned her embrace fully. She wrapped her arms tightly around Effie's back and buried her face in Effie's shoulder. Her eyes stung with unshed tears, and she squeezed them closed.

She didn't know how long they stayed like that. It was a long time before Effie stopped crying, and by then Katniss had forgotten all pretenses of wanting to let go. If Effie left, she'd be alone with her nightmares until dawn, and at dawn...

Katniss pulled her covers aside. Effie stared at Katniss's hands, then slowly curled her legs up onto the bed and readjusted.

The first time Peeta had come to her room and Katniss had asked him to stay, she'd nestled herself into his side almost without thinking about it. She couldn't think too much about anything where Peeta was concerned. He'd admitted countless times that what he'd said and done during the last Games hadn't been acting. If Katniss thought too much about it, she would be overcome by guilt—for using him, and simply for not loving him back.

She knew logically it wasn't her fault. She couldn't help how she felt. Even what she felt for Gale was a meager shadow of an emotion compared to the fear that threatened to consume her. But with the thought of Peeta came a slew of negative emotions—the feeling of owing him for the bread, the sound of Haymitch voicing her own thoughts that she didn't deserve him, President Snow, the cameras, Gale...

So she didn't think about it anymore. And while she'd shut off her train of thought, she lay back down and nestled into Effie's side. Effie stiffened for a moment, but then she relaxed and wrapped an arm loosely around Katniss's shoulders.

"It'll be all right in the end," Katniss murmured against Effie's skin—the subtle angle where her neck met her shoulder. She didn't know where the words had come from. She didn't know if she believed them. _What_ would be all right? Probably nothing.

"Yes, yes, of course," Effie murmured, but the words were empty. She squeezed Katniss's shoulders tighter.

Katniss lay still and silent for a moment. Her mind was empty and her body almost numb. She propped herself up on her elbow, leaned over, and kissed Effie on the lips.

Not unlike the handful of other kisses Katniss had initiated in her lifetime—the ones that hadn't been for the benefit of an audience—she wasn't entirely sure why she did it. The consequence of trying not to think too deeply about so many pressing matters was that Katniss was mostly out of tune with the driving forces behind her actions if they were not directly related to survival.

Would she have done the same thing if it had been Peeta who came to check in on her? It seemed much more likely. She knew how Peeta felt for her, and there was a large part of her that wanted to feel the same. She might have hated herself for it in the end, but it wouldn't have mattered. Tomorrow they would return to the arena, and Katniss would not make it out alive. What did it matter what she did now?

But Effie was not Peeta. Her lips were a thousand times softer and her shoulders were not nearly as broad. She made a high-pitched little noise when Katniss kissed her, but she didn't move away. Her hands—also impossibly soft—lightly touched the sides of Katniss's face. Her fingertips grazed Katniss's hairline.

The strangest thing was that suddenly, where there had been nothing—nothing but vague unease, which was a thin disguise for sickening fear coupled with desolate resignation, now there was _something_. Katniss felt her heart begin to beat faster, but it was not out of fear. She felt her temperature rising, but not in the discomfiting way of a fever. She felt short of breath, and she pulled away for a moment, eyes half-closed so that all she could see were Effie's lips slightly parted and gasping for air.

Katniss didn't want to think. It didn't matter. If she sent Effie away, she'd be alone until dawn. If she stopped kissing her, she would never know another real, unscripted, unseen kiss for the brief remainder of her days.

She kissed Effie again, and this time her own lips were softer—not merely a weapon in a war against time. She ran her tongue lightly over Effie's bottom lip and was again overcome by the softness of it. Effie still held Katniss's face between her hands. Katniss let her free hand wander—she examined the length of Effie's neck, the smallness of her shoulder, the curve of her breast, and the gentle dip at her waist. Her mind warred with the vague concepts of adoration and loathing—admiration of the practiced perfection of Effie's body and disgust for the system that made Effie's body possible while the people of District Twelve only grew closer and closer to the shape of their skeletons with each passing day.

They each wore similar nightgowns; finding more skin to press against skin was a mindless task. If it weren't, Katniss might have had the wherewithal to stop. When her hands had gotten their fill of neck, shoulder, breast, waist, they traveled further downward—paused briefly to pay homage to the hipbone, then quickly sought out the hem of the nightgown and settled upon the bare flesh of Effie's thigh. Her legs were long and shapely, perfectly smooth just as Katniss's were after hours of painstaking work in the hands of professional stylists. There was little discernible muscle in them, yet the skin was taut and flawless.

Again Katniss was torn between admiring and despising it, and really, she was a little surprised that any part of her could admire it. The perfection that the Capitol could manufacture was breathtaking, but it was sickening and horrible. But also breathtaking.

The tip of Katniss's tongue brushed against Effie's. She dug her fingernails (filed down into harmless nothings) into Effie's thigh and dragged them upward, at once furious and ravenous for more. She shifted her weight onto her knees, and pressed one between Effie's legs. Now her other hand was free, and she threaded her fingers into the fine, delicate hair at the base of Effie's neck, then used her grip to deepen their kisses still more.

And all this time, Effie didn't even utter a word of protest. The only sounds she made were soft, almost ethereal little gasps. She lay mostly still, and her hands made a slow, feather-light journey over Katniss's shoulders and down her back. The harder Katniss kissed, pushed, dug her nails in, the lighter Effie's touch seemed to become in response.

Katniss pulled away for a moment, overcome by the overwhelming sound of her own breathing, her own racing heartbeat. Effie was so quiet, so still—in such contrast to her usual loud flamboyance—and Katniss suddenly needed to know why. Was this the real Effie? Timid, reserved, quiet gasps and light touches? Or was she holding back? Had Katniss overstepped her bounds? Did Effie only comply because she had no choice?

Katniss had kissed Effie because she wanted to. Because Effie was there. And Katniss wanted to kiss her. And she wanted to kiss someone in private, not for the benefit of cameras or an audience full of people who hoped she died in the most exciting way possible. She had kissed Effie because of the way Effie had looked at her in her fake wedding dress for the fake wedding that would never happen, and Katniss hadn't even been afforded the opportunity to be relieved that she didn't have to marry someone she didn't love, who made her so uncomfortable with thoughts of owing him and not deserving him and President Snow and Gale, because she could have had a long, miserable, made-up life, or she could die, and which was really better in the end?

Effie's eyes were half-closed. Her natural eyelashes were as fine and delicate and fair as her natural hair. They fluttered a few times before she fully opened her eyes to look up at Katniss in a silent question. Her eyes—a pale greyish blue—were full of so much more than Katniss had ever really bothered to notice. The eyes of those whose minds were always at work, who were more than they seemed to be on the surface, shone in a different way than the eyes of those who led simple and straightforward lives. Effie's eyes, Katniss clearly saw now, lent themselves to the former persuasion.

So much less oblivious than she'dhave anyone believe.

"Should I stop?" Katniss asked her.

Effie's hands rested somewhere around Katniss's waist. The curve of her waist was not nearly as pronounced as that of Effie's waist. Katniss went more or less straight up and down. She wondered if the feeling was the same, no matter the shape of the waist. When Effie tightened her hold on Katniss, scrunched the fabric of her nightgown just above the subtle curve of her hips, Katniss almost shivered.

Effie shook her head. _No_.

"Are you sure?"

Effie nodded. _Yes_.

Maybe Katniss only believed her because she wanted to. Maybe she should have asked a better question to get the answer she was afraid of. But she didn't. She kissed Effie again, even more fiercely than before, and let her and travel from the outside to the inside of Effie's thigh. She shifted her weight again, wrapped one arm around Effie's waist as she pushed and pulled at layers of silky fabric, then swallowed thickly when her fingertips were greeted with a warm, wet sensation she'd rarely even felt from her own body.

She didn't really know what she was doing. She touched Effie the way she had touched herself that handful of times, and couldn't really tell from the tiny gasps, muffled against her own lips, whether she was doing it right.

With that same painstaking slowness, Effie's hands began to travel downward over Katniss's hips. When her fingertips made contact with Katniss's bare legs, Katniss's breath hitched. She felt an unfamiliar tugging sensation in her lower abdomen, and her body felt strangely tingly, but not in an unpleasant or alarming way. Katniss pulled away from Effie's lips to catch her breath. In the process, they locked eyes, and Katniss found she was unable to look away.

Effie's touch was so light it barely felt like a touch, and her fingers were deft. Where Katniss had made a blundering mess, clawing at nightgown and undergarments indiscriminately with the sole intention of getting them _away_, Effie easily differentiated between the different fabrics—pushed one up, pulled the other down without any ado, and ran the tips of her fingers over the delicate flesh between Katniss's legs.

Katniss clenched her hands into fists. The touch was just as light as all the others had been, but the effect was entirely different. _Effie knew what she was doing_. Her hands were not clumsy, and they were not searching. Every subtle movement of her fingers made Katniss shudder. At last she broke eye contact with Effie to squeeze her eyes closed, and after another moment, she buried her face in Effie's shoulder to release a low, guttural moan.

She tried when she'd regained control of herself to copy Effie's movements, to mirror her perfect rhythm. She kept her lips against the angle where Effie's neck met her shoulder, though, because every few minutes, she was overcome by the tension which accompanied silence, and she couldn't bear it anymore.

Effie's breath hitched, and Katniss's senses went into overdrive as she tried to revisit whatever she had just done to elicit such a reaction. Effie let go of her waist and reached up to stroke her hair. "Good," she murmured.

This—a simple utterance, not very much different from the other tiny sounds Effie made from time to time—rendered Katniss immediately and almost completely undone. She kissed Effie's neck and shoulder hungrily, held her waist tighter and tried again and again to move the fingers of her other hand in just the way that had inspired Effie to speak, to tell her _Good_.

But Effie knew what she was doing, and Katniss did not. Maybe a few more seconds passed before Katniss's hands began to shake. She dug her fingernails into Effie's side and buried her face in Effie's shoulder to stifle a choked sob of a sound as her body contracted in a feeling so pleasurable it was almost painful, almost too much for her to handle. And still she felt Effie's fingers running gently through her hair, heard that faint whisper of _Good_ echoing in her mind.

When Effie shifted and made to move Katniss back to her side, Katniss found herself unable to protest. She fell limply back into her pillow and allowed Effie to wrap her in a warm embrace without struggle, or even comment. She didn't know how long she slept—probably no more than a couple of hours—but her slumber was deep and mercifully dreamless.

She awoke at dawn to the voices of Cinna and Portia. Effie was gone. Again, Katniss had been robbed of her final opportunity to say a proper goodbye.


End file.
